Weather monitoring satellites to the rescue of people
Monday, 20 January 2003, 20:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: A network of U.S., Russian, Indian and European environmental satellites not only tracks weather but helps track down people, saving some 1,500 lives worldwide last year. Since the system's installation in 1982, experts say it has saved about 15,000 lives. The U.S. agency that monitors weather information, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says its satellites received emergency radio signals that helped rescue 171 people in the U.S. last year. Most of those rescued were in distress at sea. Some were stranded after a plane crash. Others were lost in the wilderness of Alaska. The results were part of a global effort, with U.S., Russian, Indian and European satellites forming the network to detect emergency beacons. The NOAA satellites, along with Russia's Cospas satellites, are part of an international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System known as Cospas-Sarsat. Together, the system uses a constellation of satellites in geo-stationary and polar orbits to detect and locate emergency beacons on vessels and aircraft in distress and from hand-held personal locator beacons (PLBs). India and the European Space Agency also provide geo-stationary satellites for the Cospas-Sarsat System. "It is our business to save lives," said Ajay Mehta, manager of NOAA's SARSAT programme. "We are an international humanitarian programme whose goals and rewards are based on this premise." The NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service operates the SARSAT U.S. Mission Control Centre (USMC) in Suitland, Maryland, and represents the U.S. in the international programme by providing satellites, ground stations and the mission control centre. In one dramatic rescue, a father, a son and their family dog were plucked from a life raft in the Gulf of Alaska about 90 miles south of Cordova, Alaska. "These folks were in a dangerous predicament," said Mehta. "Their fishing vessel had struck an object and sustained uncontrollable flooding causing them to abandon their vessel. Yet, because there was an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon on board that was manually activated, a U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter was able to respond to the distress quickly once the alert information was received from the USMCC." Mehta added: "The average number of distress alerts continues to rise internationally as more countries sign on to use the advantages and benefits of the Cospas-Sarsat system." NOAA's Geo-stationary Operational Environmental Satellites can instantly detect emergency distress signals. The polar-orbiting satellites in the system detect emergency signals as they circle the Earth from pole to pole. The signals are sent to the mission control centres and then automatically sent to rescue forces around the world. Today there are 35 countries participating in the system. NOAA Satellite and Information Services also operates three data centres, which house global data bases in climatology, oceanography, solid earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, and paleoclimatology.
Source: IANS
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